Assignment: Business Research Methods and Tools
Experimental Research Design, Quasi-Experimental Research Design, and Presenting Research Results
Presenting the results of your research in a professional manner is essential. If your report is not easily understandable, management will likely not respond well to your findings, regardless of how well you executed the research. The stakeholders who are reading the research report may not be experts in research, so you must communicate all aspects of the research effectively. This applies to every aspect of your written presentation. Grammar and spelling errors, overly long paragraphs, a lack of logical flow, and so on can make your stakeholders view your work negatively, even if the research was designed and conducted well.
Business research writing is different from other types of writing. If you took English literature classes as an undergraduate, you might remember that you had to write quite a bit about your interpretation of the stories, poems, and so forth. Business communication is very different from the writing you had to do for your freshman English class, and it's definitely very different from the texts and Facebook messages you might send to your friends and family. The Hollis-Turner and Scholtz (2010) article that you've been assigned to read this week will hopefully help you understand the importance of good business communication, and why we emphasize it so much here at Ashford University.
Solid writing can involve visuals as well. Elements such as charts, graphs, tables, and an overall attractive visual presentation will take you a long way in providing a polished report. Statistical results can be more easily understood if they're presented in a simple chart or graph than if they're written out in a paragraph. Of course, you must consider your various audiences as you write your report: their job responsibilities, their connection to the research, their investment in the results, and so on. If you're presenting research to upper management, they might be most interested in how the research will affect the bottom line for the business. If you're presenting research to peers, they might want to know how it can improve the efficiency of their everyday workflow.
An interesting question to ask is how "professional" a report can be if it's biased. Unfortunately, we sometimes find that a company wants to skew the results in its favor (pharmaceutical companies have been known to do this, for example, when they want their new drug to seem safer than it really is), and therefore, the results may not be as accurate as they should be. Companies that fund university research sometimes might pressure researchers for certain results, too. These companies want the researchers to find results that will benefit the business. If you look at medical research journal articles such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, you'll see required statements from the researchers such as "Conflict of Interest Disclosure," "Funding/Support," and "Roles of the Sponsors," so that any possible biases are not hidden and so readers can be aware of the potential for such biases.
As you complete your research project for this class, be sure to look for anything that might be considered unprofessional and correct it. Your final report should be polished, completed, and something you would be proud to show a potential employer in a job interview. Who knows? You might just get a job based on your new knowledge about how to conduct business research.